


I Speak Another Name (But Hold Yours Ever Closer)

by rixinaugust



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: 5+1 Things, But takes place after, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I mean it’s 7 but same concept, Light Angst, Post-Gaea & The Second Giant War (Percy Jackson), Post-The Second Titan War (Percy Jackson), Sort Of, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, told in flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28524000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rixinaugust/pseuds/rixinaugust
Summary: The girl scoffed at Annabeth. “Go ahead, let yourself get hurt. Boys like him...”Her fingers slipped beneath her jacket sleeve, tracing the marks that marred her skin. Soulmarks. It’s been a long time since she believed that the determined her fate, although they capture her life almost perfectly.Or,Seven times Percy says someone else’s name, and one time he says hers.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	I Speak Another Name (But Hold Yours Ever Closer)

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t sleep last night, so I wrote a thing. Just a short stand alone piece about soulmates. Enjoy :)

“Wait-“ Annabeth usually isn’t one to interrupt her boyfriend - not anymore, at least - but she swears she knows the bartender from somewhere. 

He turns to face her, eyebrows scrunched up in a confused look that makes her want to pull him in for a kiss, but that would be highly inappropriate. That and she likes to think of herself as having more willpower than the average house cat. Instead, she tips her head towards the bartender, praying that he understands what she’s getting at.

Glancing between the two of them, he stands there for a minute before placing a hand on her shoulder to move past her. She tries not to let her eyes follow him back through the crowded pub. (She fails. He laughs at something Hazel says, and she catches as the soulmark on his jawline glimmers in the dim light.) 

“Your boyfriend?” The bartender asks, tense undertones creeping into her voice.

She knows it’s not the right thing to say, but she can’t help the admission that slips from her lips, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

The pub isn’t one they come to often, not that they frequent pubs, but they’ve been here before. It’s loud. A small price to pay, however for the sheer diversity and quality of their non-alcoholic drinks. The food is good too, but they’re more focused on the drinks since the fact that neither her nor Percy drink tends to put a damper on the idea of the pub style hanging out with their friends and coworkers when the non-alcoholic drinks suck.

She watches him from where she’s leaning against the bar, astutely aware that the bartender is doing the same. There’s still nothing telling Annabeth where she knows the other girl from. She frowns, racking her brain for something, anything...

”Be careful.”

It’s hard to see in the pub’s lighting, and it certainly doesn’t help that the light by the bar is either burnt out or turned off. The bartender’s face is unreadable. Part of her wants to tell her to shut up, that she’s thinking, but maybe having more to go off of will jog her memory. “Hm?” She asks, unsure of what the warning is supposed to be about, although she’s always careful.

The bartender scoffs. “Go ahead, let yourself get hurt. Don’t come crying to me. Boys like him...” She shakes her head, as if to rid herself of a particularly nasty thought. 

Annabeth feels her eyebrows knit together. She thinks she knows what this is about. Her fingers slip under the edge of her jacket sleeve, tracing the marks that she knows mar her skin. They are slightly raised, unlike the tattoos she’s gotten over the years, which for all the pain they start with, remain indiscernible from her skin as time passes. Soulmarks.

She’s found her peace with hers, but that’s not the case with everyone. Soulmates are as much a part of life as anything else, and soulmarks along with it. But lives aren’t perfect - they still love and lose, lie and leech the affection of others. Soulmarks don’t come with an instruction manual, don’t come with a definition or a plan. She’s wondered many times if their world wouldn’t be better off if humans didn’t have soulmarks.

Typically speaking, humans only have one soulmark at a time. (Naturally, she has eight, although one appears to be fading, and she doubts another will take its place.) Her marks snake up her left arm, twirling and twisting around each other as much as stationary marks can.

(She has one mark that moves, a whitetip reef shark that swims around her skin depending on her emotions. It may be small, but it’s by far her favorite.) 

Lots of people feel as though a single soulmark is the only acceptable version, that people with more than one are somehow worth less. She wants to question their ability to love someone in a platonic sense, but soulmarks aren’t the only kind of love, nor does the lack of one make the love worth any less. It’s complicated, and despite vigorously debating about them with most people in her life from the time she first learned about them at five years old, she’s no closer to figuring out why they’re there. 

She’s lucky in the sense that her soulmarks aren’t visible if she’s wearing a long sleeve shirt, sweater, or jacket. While she gets a few dirty looks from soulmate truthers - people who believe marks are something that need to be shown at all times - there aren’t many of them, and she manages.

”I trust him,” She turns to the bartender as she responds, even though the last comment was likely several minutes ago. 

And, really, she’s not sure what to do with the genuine confusion in the girl’s face, so she begins talking.

* * *

  
  
“Luke,” Percy says, and the other boy’s name sounds weird on his lips. “Luke,” He says again, rolling it over his tongue and pressing it through his teeth. 

Annabeth thinks it sounds like the air pushing through a puncture hole on a tire, and wonders if the same thing is happening to her heart. She’s barely thirteen years old and standing on a ship full of monsters that would stop at nothing to kill her if Luke gave the word. “Luke Castellan,” She says as if she can’t feel every beat of her heart against her rib cage, reverberating through her entire body, right down to her fingertips. 

“That’s me,” He says, and his smile is so easy, so carefree that she almost understands why he wants to go against the gods.

She tries not to think of soulmarks. She tries not to think of the dagger that rests in the crook of her elbow, the blade angled downwards as if filling her veins with the promise of family, the hilt wrapped around her arm. She tries not to think of soulmarks and ultimately fails. 

It doesn’t make a difference in the long run. 

She’s never known soulmarks to be beautiful the way some people do. She’s grown up on the streets, grown up paving her own way in the world after broken promises and blackened soulmarks. Never hers, but she understands the warnings. And she’s only thirteen, her mark isn’t fading or burning. It’s just there, as clear as ever. 

At thirteen, she’s not hiding her arms. She has other things to worry about, more important things than silly prejudices about the number of marks on her left arm. Sometimes, when they’re bored, her and Percy will compare their marks. They’ve got a few of the same ones and a few different. (She feels something tugging in her stomach when she thinks about staying by his side for the rest of their lives, but they’re only thirteen and probably going to die before they reach adulthood.)

Percy doesn’t have a mark for Luke. 

It only makes her a little uneasy as he rubs the scar from the scorpion, standing in front of Luke. They didn’t mean to get here, but now that they are, it’s difficult for any of them to make another move. (Family, Luke, you promised.) (I’m your friend, Seaweed brain.) (I’m sorry, Annabeth.) (I’d prefer not to kill you.) She knows her breathing is heavy, and although she’s trying to get it under control, some things are beyond her grasp. Okay, so maybe it makes her more than a little uneasy.

“Luke,” Percy says a third time, and she wonders now more than ever what he’s thinking.

”Percy,” He returns.

Percy has always been a little bit impulsive, so she’s not that surprised when the words rush out of his mouth, “You don’t have to do this.”

”Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Jackson. I want to do this.” Luke smirks, eyes full of an emotion Annabeth doesn’t recognize, but Percy stands his ground. 

She’s never been the kind of girl to need someone else to defend her. In fact, most of the time it makes her angry. This time it doesn’t, and she’s not sure why. She wonders if the shark is for him. She wonders what it means for them. She wonders a lot, but it’s moments like these where she can’t help but notice how much she wants the shark to be for him, wants their lives and souls to be intertwined. 

At thirteen, she still doesn’t want to believe in soulmates. She certainly doesn’t let them control her fate like some people choose to. Besides the moments where she compares with other people, she largely ignores her marks. 

She remembers her father and the burned mark on his arm, the sign of love that was not only unrequited but that the other had chosen to terminate your own bond with them. She remembers her father, sitting at the dining room table and staring at his arm. The emotions he has left are minimal, but she doesn’t fully understand that because she’s no older than five. He doesn’t cry, just stares. She wants better for him, so she’s happy when he finds Helen. 

Helen is another woman with a burned mark. They’re both apathetic, but they want something else, so they're a family now. It doesn’t change much. Her father still sits at the dining room table and stares. 

They somehow find it in them to love the twins Helen gives birth to a year later, and Annabeth decides she is officially done with soulmates. 

Percy changes that, although Percy changes everything. He tells her not to be ashamed of her marks, lets her run her fingers over the raised skin of his, demanding nothing in return. She pretends to protest, but he makes her feel something new, something so exhilarating she doesn’t ever want to let go. Even if he is a little brat at twelve. 

“This isn’t for the gods, Castellan. That’s not what this is about,” Percy’s face is carefully blank, but his chosen words aren’t convincing enough. Luke swings his sword.

* * *

“Thalia,” Percy says. The other girl studies him carefully, nimble fingers drifting to the new circlet in her hair - a new soulmark, from a goddess. Annabeth wonders how they got here, to this point, but she’s not the daughter of Athena for nothing, so she knows it’s not her conversation and promptly shuts her mouth.

”Percy,” Thalia returns, weary. 

He looks down at the ground, “I want to apologize.” 

“You don’t need to,” She says cautiously, but easily, as though she doesn’t want to accept his apology because he’s male but doesn’t feel he has anything to apologize for. Her soulmark is on her neck - if she has others, they’re hidden well, because Annabeth’s never seen them - and the edges are blackened. The colors in the center are as bright as usual. 

She wonders if it’s always been like this. Blackened edges are widely accepted as unrequited love, but in a way that the person they love chose to let them be. She wonders if Thalia’s mark is for Luke. (It’s a stapler, and she’s not sure what Luke would have to do with a stapler, but she knows Thalia’s life goes beyond her own, and it would be stupid to imagine her relationship with Luke stopped with Annabeth.) It looks kind of cool, with the blackened edges. Most marks aren’t like that she knows, but Thalia’s never played by the rules. 

“Thalia,” Percy says again, the name rolling off his lips smoothly, passing through his teeth unobstructed. Her name is easier than Luke’s, she knows. 

“Percy,” Thalia repeats, and his name sounds much less like lying than it did before. 

(He’s doing this for her.) 

“Sister,” He says when the three of them meet, months down the line, and she wonders when they went from stilted apologies for events long forgiven to long lost siblings.

”Brother,” She says, her voice pulled back by some emotion Annabeth couldn’t read.

(They did this for her, but it helped them too.) 

“Thalia,” He says again when they meet, this time side by side in battle.

”Percy,” She says easily, as though he’s something more than a boy, “Annabeth.”   
And now isn’t the time to ask about soulmates, but she can’t help but wonder about what the two of them have. 

(She’ll learn years down the line, when Jason comes to Camp. He’ll make an offhand comment about being replaced by Percy, and she’ll understand that Thalia’s soulmark has always been for Jason.)

She’ll understand that the way the blackened edges faded when Percy decided to love her wasn’t because Percy was ever her soulmate, but rather because Percy has a way of loving the bad out of most people. She’ll understand that Thalia has only ever been destined for sibling love, as much as she may want otherwise. She’ll understand that Percy was never meant to be permanent, but it worked out that way all the same, though they would never share a mark. 

Most of all, she’ll understand how much the marks don’t dictate the extent of the love you feel, and the love you create. And maybe she’ll never understand why some bonds have marks and others don’t, but she’ll turn to breathe in life and realize that she’s never cared for soulmarks. 

She knows her family is one made from love, regardless of marks, and she can breathe easy again. 

* * *

“Rachel,” He says, and she scowls at how easily her name comes to him. 

Her smile is wide, “Percy.”

Annabeth tries not to let her fingers find the shark she knows is swimming around her skin, but fails. Her pointer finger holds it in place on her wrist, and she wonders if it’s wrong that she wishes it was bigger. Rachel grins at her, oblivious. 

“Rachel,” He says in conversation, not quite as though she’s sitting there with them, but with enough of a smile to make her heart rate speed up. She wants nothing but to punch the girl. No one takes Percy away from her. 

“Percy,” She says, warning clear in her tone.

She hates his knowing grin as he changes the subject. 

(She’s always liked the paintbrush on her forearm. It’s simple in design, but so inherently beautiful that she can’t help but memorize its outline. Not all of her marks are beautiful, she knows, but they have a kind of beauty so ingrained within her that she can’t hate them no matter how hard she tries.) 

Trying to hate her soulmarks isn’t all that unusual, many do, but it’s a reflection of the kind of person she doesn’t want to be. She thinks sometimes that if her mother had liked soulmarks, maybe her father would have been able to love her like a normal parent. 

The paintbrush is the most normal soulmark she has, and she shares it when mortals ask what her mark is, but only when she’s in a good mood. (Sometimes, she’ll share the shark. Maybe she’ll fall in love with a marine biologist, they say. She wants to scoff, but she giggles and talks about architecture.) When she’s angry at the world, she’ll refuse to show her mark. It’s not the best idea, and it’s cost her more than a few friends, but to her it’s something private and excuse her if she doesn’t want everyone in her English class knowing that she has a soulmate who likes painting. 

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to figure out that Rachel is her paintbrush soulmate. 

Once she figures it out, everything feels so much lighter, She wonders if this is how finding a soulmate is supposed to be. With Luke and Thalia, it just kind of happened. She’s not really sure how to describe it. 

She knew that Luke was one of her soulmates from the minute she was handed the weapon. She wordlessly showed him her mark, and he showed her the lego mark on his ankle. She nodded, and he swept her into a hug. That’s all it took, although she still didn’t believe in soulmates as a good thing, she didn’t have anywhere else to go and Luke was a pretty good soulmate. As far as soulmates went in her head, that is. 

When Thalia was turned into a tree, her pinecone soulmark made sense. It was another quiet moment, tearful, but she moved on as best she could. 

She’s pretty sure that Percy is her reef shark soulmate.

She knows she should say something, but the look in his eyes stops her every time. It’s the same look she knows was on his face when he told her he wanted to love beyond his soulmates. Her official stance on soulmates is that she doesn’t want the marks. (He thinks both of theirs are pretty, but says he doesn’t like being confined by them.) 

“Rachel,” she says finally, and all three of them know they can rest easy, their matching sets of soulmarks glittering with emotion.

* * *

“Jason,” Percy says, the name lingering on his lips like a prayer. 

“Jason,” She says, a tingling on her tongue as she gives Percy a small smile. This time, they both know, and she can’t help but gulp down the feeling that fills the air between them. 

It’s the second time they’ve shared a soulmate. She’s not sure how they all missed the fact that Thalia’s prominent stapler mark is mirrored on their bodies. Hers is in the center of her forearm, surrounded by the other soulmarks. Percy’s is on the back of his hand. (He loves brushing it up against hers, the beating of their hearts syncing to the beat of their shared soulmate. And even if they don’t believe in letting soulmates control their fate, she understands why some might in those moments.)

There’s only one more shared soulmark between the two of them, and Annabeth feels uncomfortably nervous about that fact. 

“Percy?” He asks, confusion dripping from his forehead like sweat. She smiles at him openly, so unlike the guarded grins she’s given up to now. There’s no promise that they’ll survive the next month - or even the next few days - but she wants him to know. Wants him to understand what his family is made of. 

(It’s more than he’d ever imagine.) 

“Jason,” Percy says as he steps forward. He traces his fingers over his back, conveniently shirtless from sparring on deck. Annabeth watches as Percy’s fingers find the soulmarks that bind the three of them on Jason’s back. She wonders if anyone’s told him what the marks are and what they might mean. 

“Annabeth?” 

“Jason,” She soothes. “Family.” 

He stands there for what has to be a good five minutes, gaping at her. No one told him of her bond to Thalia, she assumes. Between the two of them, she thinks they might know more about Jason that Jason does. 

It’s not a happy thought, but it’s motivation enough. 

She grabs his hand, guiding it under her shirt sleeve to where she knows his mark is. “Family,” She repeats. 

And though it seems a bit childish, she knows it was the right thing to do when the grin he gives her is enough to power a lightbulb. 

Percy’s hand brushes Jason’s, and they’re all that much closer. (She decides her fears of only sharing one more soulmate with Percy are unfounded, because if this is what it’s like, she knows too much more would make her giddy to the point of intoxication.) Family. Now all they need is Thalia, and she can almost hear the prayer that they will get that within their lifetimes.

* * *

“Piper,” Percy says. 

Her head is in her hands, her shoulders shaking. 

“Piper, sweetheart,” He says, but Annabeth knows he’s talking to her more than to Piper. He puts his arm around the daughter of Aphrodite, and she lets herself melt into him. 

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” She finds herself murmuring as she strokes her friend’s hair. 

“Per-cy,” She hiccups.   
  
“Shhh, sweetheart, let us take care of it.” 

They stay there for a long time, sitting on the dock. Percy’s arm doesn’t move from Piper’s shoulders, but at some point Annabeth slips her fingers into his. The ocean air washes over them, a cool sea-salt breeze that brings her a kind of comfort that she doesn’t always understand. 

She hasn’t thought of soulmates in a long time. Since she found Jason, really, but she pushes thoughts of Jason from her mind because that’s not what Piper needs. (She feels sick at the idea of a fabricated soulmark, as much as she doesn’t believe that they control destiny and fate. Hera has long ago earned her wrath, but this is more. This is... it’s almost worse than the blackened soulmark that graces the arm of her father.) 

When she finally realizes that Piper is asleep, she’s too late to catch Percy staring at her like she’s the only girl on earth that matters, because he’s asleep too - his back slumped against hers, still holding on to her hand like a lifeline and pulling Piper close. 

She knows that Piper isn’t one of Percy’s soulmates; she has each and every one of his marks memorized. A cookie for his mom, a lego model of Hoover dam for her, a paintbrush for Rachel, a tin can for Grover, a skull that she’s pretty sure is for Nico, and Arion for Hazel. They have one last matching mark that they don’t understand yet, a palm tree with flames licking at the base. Neither the skull nor the palm tree strike her as an integral part of Piper, but Percy’s always known soulmates better than she has.

It’s then when it hits her.

Percy’s always known her soulmates better than she has. Ever since she met him, he’s known her soulmate before she figures it out. (Piper is not an exception, for which she’s grateful.) 

“Percy,” She breathes when he wakes up. He gives her a long look, confused and searching. Then he grins, the same all-encompassing smile that made her fall in love with him in the first place, and she knows she’s got it right. 

* * *

“Frank,” Percy says, a name that sounds like honey dripping from his lips. The words are easy, having been said probably a million times before, but it sounds no less sweet. 

“Frank,” She tests out, and it tastes like maple syrup. It flows freely, and she knows love will come with the same smooth, sweet conviction. She wants to say it again, again, again, to quench her hunger with the taste of his name in her mouth, but he’s already looking at her weird. “Percy,” She says instead, and tastes cream cheese frosting - not the easy simplicity that follows Frank, but a flavor she can’t get enough of nonetheless. 

He smiles at her, and all is right in the world. 

She’s not surprised that she’s soulmates with Frank, even though Percy isn’t. Relationships are as unique as soulmarks, perhaps more. 

He loves Frank too, she can tell. He loves with all of his being, pours his soul into people he knows may never feel the same. (She wonders, if after Luke, he’s just scared of letting anyone go without love.) But Frank cares for him too, and it doesn’t seem to matter that they don’t have marks lining their skin, linking each other together. 

(He doesn’t tell her how their matching Arion marks match when they hug; he doesn’t have to. Percy is her true soulmate - not that any of their other soulmates are fake, but their bond runs deeper than any of the others. It’s easy for others to assume that they’re less soulmates than they are the same soul, but it doesn’t matter to them.)

When Annabeth realizes that she has a soulmate in Frank, it doesn’t rock her world. She doesn’t feel her pulse, she doesn’t see a new color, she doesn’t learn to fly. When she realizes she has a soulmate in Frank, it’s the quiet moments that become enhanced. She doesn’t gain impulses or a desire for an adrenaline rush. She gains a friend. 

It’s not that they weren’t friends before, but Frank’s always been a bit shy, and she’s always been a bit intense. Taking time to just be friends hadn’t quite crossed their minds.

When Annabeth realizes she has a soulmate in Frank, she becomes more of herself. She’s spent the last fifteen years gaining traits from her soulmates, becoming a better, fuller individual. With Frank, she’s five years old again, thinking love can solve anything, and she knows that she’s just been becoming more herself. 

She thinks he’s found peace with her, too.

* * *

  
“Leo,” Percy says, and she tastes lemon drops. 

“Leo,” She echos, and she only tastes lemon. She chokes a little, the bitter sensation flooding her body. By the time she will understand what it means, she’ll taste red gummy bears when she says his name. (Loving him is difficult, but no less sweet.) 

“Leo,” The mechanic agrees, words wound tight like a coil. 

She braces for the impact and lets the wire spring loose, “Leo.” 

He scowls. “Yeah, come in here like I wasn’t working on something more important than you’ll ever be, and just stand there saying my name over and over. What a great way to stay. Out. Of. My. Way.” 

His words are daggers, ghosts. Deep red, like she’s only ever seen in dried blood, weaves its way up the walls. She feels the logical side of her brain screaming at her to get out, it’s dangerous, you’re going to get yourself killed. 

But this isn’t the time for logic. 

Annabeth isn’t all logic, like many assume. She’s as much love, as much pride, as much jealousy, as much intensity as any other person. She doesn’t believe that soulmates determine fate. She doesn’t subscribe to the belief that the only true love you contain is for your soulmate. All of that doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe in soulmates or in love, because she does. She knows that Percy is her soulmate, and she only has to look at him to understand why people believe that true love is synonymous with soulmates. But she loves beyond him, even beyond the people represented by her soulmarks. 

She loves Sally. She loves Grover. She even loves her father, in a way. (And yeah, she does love all of Percy’s soulmates. It doesn’t matter that much to either of them. It’s just more love to go around.) 

And she... 

She loves Leo. 

“You’re soulless, Jackson! How can you, how can you, how can you...” 

(She watches helplessly as Leo topples to the ground, tears decorating the floor in front of him. Flames spring up from his shoes, and she is frozen in place.) 

Percy looks a type of calm she cannot imagine being right now. She feels Leo’s tears welling up in her own throat, and struggles to swallow. He takes a long breath and strides towards him. She wants to yell at him, tell him to keep himself safe, but the flames have made their way to her tongue, and it only flickers in front of her eyes. 

“Leo,” Percy says, as though it’s been hidden in the back of his mouth for weeks. “Leo, look at me, darlin.” 

“Percy?” He says, more jalapeño than lime. Annabeth remembers a time when she hadn’t understood why Percy repeated the names of her soulmates so tenderly, and she had poured spice into her words. She remembers a time when she lives filled with bitter jealousy for his words, when she didn’t realize he did it for her.

“I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

”Then why did you leave her? She loved you!” 

He sighs, and she thinks only of Percy explaining the world to a child. (Their child, she hopes.) “I was fifteen, Leo. Fifteen and in love with another girl, in love with a life she was asking me to leave behind.”

”What are promises supposed to mean, then?” The words are bitter and full of spice, Annabeth notes. She doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand the tastes inside her mouth beyond names. She’s always rolled names around her teeth to understand, but promises leaves a gritty film she wants to spit out. 

Percy’s words are hollow, “More than you think,” and she knows his mind is fixed on Luke. 

She wants to scream fighting words, wants everyone to know he was worth more than they’ll ever know, wants everyone to know he is and has always been her soulmate, that the dagger on her arm should tell them all they want to know. It’s faded over time, since his death, but it never lost its color. He never lost his heart, she thinks, and remembers being thirteen aboard a boat headed for the Sea of Monsters. 

Percy never lost his heart either, and she wonders if that wasn’t a bigger feat. 

Instead of screaming, she balls up the fire on her tongue and uses it on one word, “Leo.” 

Both boys turn to her, Percy’s eyes full of love and Leo’s full of fight, but her heart speeds up for both of them. “Love was never the question.” 

“I tried,” Percy offers, and Leo slumps. 

“I just... I just want her back, but she won’t...” 

“Calypso has had it hard in life,” He admits. “There are a lot of things she might have done differently, but there are also a lot of things that we might have done differently. Love isn’t always what you think it is.” 

“Love isn’t always what you think it is,” She repeats, and the realization hits them at the same time. 

(The palm tree has always been Leo.) 

* * *

  
“Annabeth,” Percy says, and she remembers every person she’s ever loved. Her name in his mouth tastes like home and cupcakes. She’s soft around him, even when she’s not. 

She remembers a time when she didn’t want to know her soulmates, when she sat under a tree that represented her pinecone soulmate and cried. 

She remembers a time when the only thing she wanted to do with soulmates was the way they got to compare pictures, and even then she felt as though she could do without it.

She remembers a time when she didn’t know Percy’s desire to love her soulmates as well as his own, a desire to save them from something none of them could pin down.

“Percy,” She says, and remembers the origin of soulmates. She thinks it’s silly now, how incomplete people were only ever pictured as two parts, because she’s left a part of her with every person she’s loved. She has eight soulmarks, and each of them are equally unimportant. 

She wonders if her and Percy are soulmates because they believe the same things about soulmates, even when she guards her heart and Percy gives his freely. She asks him one night, while they lay awake in the dark, trying to be something they haven’t been for a long time, and she remembers why she loves her name in his mouth. 

It’s not always as sickly sweet as her other soulmates, but it’s more. It’s promises of love and family she can count on being permanent.

* * *

“Annabeth Chase,” The bartender says, offering her hand. 

The fingers are long and nimble. The palm is soft, not too thin. The fingernails are a brilliant shade of yellow that Annabeth swears she’s seen before. The hand is beautiful, she knows. 

But it’s not beauty that’s drawn her to the bartender. It’s something else, and she meets her eyes to ask permission to trace the darkened soulmark that sucks the life from where it winds its way up the bartender’s arm. The pattern was obviously once beautiful, from the way it twirls through the bartender’s life force. 

She understands now, what the warning is about. 

(The thing is, she’s confident in who she is now. Seeing her boyfriend love other people only makes her love him more - how could she do anything but love the qualities that have shaped her? She’s confident in who she is, and she has seen Percy do it seven times at this point.) 

She pulls the word into her mouth and rolls it around, trying to get a taste. She takes a deep breath and looks the bartender in the eyes (green, green, always green). “Calypso,” she says, thinking of Leo and the flames of his love. 

“Annabeth,” Calypso gasps.

A palm tree, surrounded in stunning orange tongues of fire swirls to life on her arm.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment if you think you had as much fun reading as I did writing this :)


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